Innovation is often the combination of great effort and a moment of inspiration. Regardless of the pursuit, a great deal of time and energy is spent to achieve anything worthwhile. This applies to virtually every human endeavor, whether designing a piece of software, writing a novel, playing a musical piece, building and playing Magic decks as well as many others. The inspiration is a consequence of the hard work where the innovator finds the new idea that is the answer he or she has been looking for.
In Magic, innovation comes both in the way that decks are designed and the manner in which they are played. The best designers find ingenious solutions because they are constantly working on their decks. Their persistence to find the optimal cards gives them the knowledge to realize the answer when and if they stumble across it. Players go through a similar process of trying to understand the best way to use the cards that they have access to in any given game. They are looking for a new way to use the same cards. In most cases, the cards are often used in the very similar ways, but when an opportunity presents itself, the better players often find a new use of a card or an interaction because they have been searching for them.
I turn to one of Legacy’s innovators, Damon Whitby (Parcher on The Source), to discuss Legacy Ichorid. His interesting card choices have opened some eyes but also have been supported by multiple Top 8 finishes by him and others who have used similar lists. His work on the deck sparked my interest in the deck and lead to my own success with his build. My first major tournament experience with his decklist is chronicled in a previous Unlocking Legacy article, From Here to Eternity.
He has also recently written an extensive primer on Legacy Ichroid that provides a wealth of knowledge. Much of the foundational information about Ichorid and his list can be found there, but my interview of him explores where some of his ideas came from and how he came to the conclusions that he did. Also he tries to clear up some of the misconceptions about the deck. Finally, we end with his latest list and ask him to justify his choices.
Section I — Introduction and Background
How long have you played competitive Magic?
Since MirVLight Block Constructed, but I’ve taken breaks over the years.
What formats have you played both in the past and currently?
In the past I played virtually everything. Now it’s just Extended, Legacy, and some drafting.
What draws you to Legacy? Why do you play it?
I love Legacy because I enjoy taking decks as far as they can go, and the nature of the Eternal formats gives you time to do this. Some decks, like what came to be called Dragon Stompy, remain largely unchanged since I won with the initial design. Some decks will never really be perfected, but trying to do so is the most fun part for me because I play the decks that I work on.
Section II – Interest in Ichorid
When did you start playing and designing Legacy Ichorid?
My first actual Legacy tournament with Ichorid was in January of 2008. My only big change to that version was switching Cephalid Coliseum for Undiscovered Paradise. The field was largely control with Tormod’s Crypt in the sideboard. I wanted to increase my chances of casting Putrid Imp because he easily lets you play around Crypt. The control decks usually could answer him or play Tormod’s Crypt, but not both.
Do you have experience with Ichorid in other formats?
I played it briefly in both Vintage and Extended. I prefer Stax decks in Vintage since it’s the only format they are really good in, but I liked Dredge in Extended before the rotation.
What specifically draws you to Ichorid as deck worth pursuing? What is it about the deck that others might not understand?
If I had to sum it up in one word, it would be misconceptions. The vast majority of players have misconceptions about the deck’s ease of play, its inconsistencies, and its vulnerability to hate cards. I like trying to dispel all of these myths because they are largely untrue.
Ichorid is one of the most linear decks available. Most equate this with ease of play, but in the case of Ichorid this not really true. Attacking for 21 on turn 1 seems pretty simple to accomplish when the cards fall your way, but very often they don’t. Playing your way out of more difficult situations is very hard due to the very linear nature of Ichorid. It takes a great deal of patience and experience with playing against the whole of the format to be comfortable in situations where your opponent gets to play Magic. Most players don’t take the time to reason their way through these situations and instead claim “the deck crapped out on them” or “Ichorid is too inconsistent” as their reason for losing. Ichorid is far more resilient than most would believe.
Ichorid’s supposed inconsistency is another reason players may avoid it. The most common reason I have found for this excuse is improper mulliganing. Ichorid mulligans better than any deck in the history of Magic. Why do players not take advantage of this? I am 100% comfortable going to five cards in any situation, and and often fine with four. The LED version of Ichorid is geared for speed and explosiveness. A hand that cannot take advantage of this, or at least cannot stay ahead of a known opponent, should likely be shipped back.
The other common complaint is “poor dredges.” There are times when it goes through 12-15 cards and see no Bridge from Below. The rare occurrences when you might not hit exactly what you need at that moment are far outweighed by the percentage that you will. The odds catch up with everyone, but most Ichorid players forget all those times they just totally blew out their opponent before they even played a spell.
Hate cards are also a big concern for most players. It’s a fair concern, since cards that attack the graveyard are cheap and accessible to every color. The three biggest problems with these answers are:
1) An opponent must actually draw them and play them in a relevant time frame
2) The sideboard card must cripple Ichorid strategy’s and make any counter-measures futile
3) An opponent must win before Ichorid can recover.
For instance, in Type I, Tormod’s Crypt is a common card in as many or more sideboards than it is in Legacy due to the broken recursion in that format. Do you know how many cards Vintage Ichorid decks bring in to answer Tormod’s Crypt? Zero. None. Do you know why? It isn’t a relevant card. Ichorid is so much faster in both initial speed, and recovery, that the result of an activated Crypt is not worth a sideboard slot. In Legacy we lack Bazaar of Baghdad as a less-disruptable discard outlet, but the rest remains the same. If you have not learned to either play around or power straight through a Crypt or Relic of Progenitus, you need more practice with the deck. It’s quite easy to force most control decks into a situation where they need to activate the Crypt and then to immediately dredge enough of your deck to win. Aggro decks force you to abandon the slow-dredging plan, but lack enough disruption to stop you from combo-ing out, or Dread Returning an Ancestor’s Chosen before they can often even find a Crypt. If they open with Crypt/Relic and early pressure, well, sometime you just will lose. Multiples hate cards require some luck to beat, but the opponent had to have luck to get them in the first place. Leyline of the Void is a rarity in Legacy, and Yixlid Jailer is both too slow to hit play before discarded or the game ends and easily removed if resolved. Most other options are either too slow, mana-intensive, or too narrow to merit concern.
What do you define as linear deck or strategy?
In regards to Ichorid and Magic decks in general, I define linear as having a single path to victory. Ichorid is especially linear since not only is its only way to win is to attack with creatures, but those creatures (for the greater part) must come only from the graveyard. Ichorid can rarely cast a creature. Ichorid is never going to deck their opponent. Ichorid can’t realistically win with direct damage. Ichorid can’t reasonably disrupt their opponent’s gameplan for more than two-three turns. Ichorid is awful defensively. It gets stuff in the graveyard and then brings it back to attack. For the most part, every card in the deck is included solely for this purpose. I’ve tried to diversify it with additions like Firestorm and Eternal Witness, but only so much can be done.
Section III — Your version of Ichorid
What can you tell us about your approach to designing Ichorid?
Ichorid is hyper-aggressive, and almost purely linear. You are attacking your opponent’s hand and life total using resources from your hand, the board, and graveyard. Every card in the deck and sideboard, and every strategy with the deck should advance that goal. That is what I always keep in mind when considering any new addition to the deck. I think that using slower, weaker cards, which may seem more consistent, take the deck in the wrong direction. I keep track on everything Ichorid-related and have yet to see a deck running fourteen lands, or even one without LED winning any tournaments. Ichorid has to be built like a combo deck and altering even two or three cards can throw off everything else.
For the same reasons I dislike cards that bow to opponent’s strategies. Running Pithing Needle to stop Crypt or Relic is playing the opponent’s game, and gives them an easy target for removal. I much prefer cards that directly attack the problem, like Ancient Grudge or circumvent it like Greater Gargadon. Gargadon adds another plane of attack that is in addition to creatures in play and the ones that are returning from the graveyard.
Do you look at ideas from Vintage and past Extended versions to find innovations that might have been neglected in Legacy?
Absolutely. While Extended has little to offer in innovation due to its limited card pool, it did prove that Ichorid could be the most dominant deck regardless of what its detractors may say about its inconsistency or weakness to graveyard hate.
In Vintage, Albert Kyle is the Godfather of the Manaless Ichorid lists that have consistently won, and has been a big influence for my designs. While not much directly translates from those Bazaar-based decks to the Legacy versions, Kyle’s deck theory and reasoning behind card selection has had great amount of influence on how I approach Legacy Ichorid.
Can you give us an example of where a card you tried in Ichorid did not work out, and what you learned from such an experience?
I really wanted Brainstorm to be good because it’s one of the most broken cards still legal in Legacy. The problem with it in Ichorid boils down to the fact that it costs mana and cannot discard cards. There really was no effective slot to replace with it. While fixing an opening hand or returning a Narcomoeba to your library are good plays but they rarely translated directly into winning and it just slowed the deck down. Its results were much like Careful Study, which were generally weak.
Section IV — Recent Developments
This past weekend, Damon placed 6th at Legacy tournament in Vestal, NY. Here is the list that he played.
Creatures (25)
- 2 Sadistic Hypnotist
- 4 Putrid Imp
- 4 Ichorid
- 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
- 3 Golgari Thug
- 4 Stinkweed Imp
- 4 Narcomoeba
Lands (11)
Spells (24)
- 3 Unmask
- 4 Cabal Therapy
- 2 Deep Analysis
- 4 Breakthrough
- 4 Lion's Eye Diamond
- 3 Dread Return
- 4 Bridge from Below
Sideboard
Why did you cut Flame-Kin Zealot and Eternal Witness for 2 Sadistic Hypnotist? Was it a metagame decision?
It’s been a point of contention for some time in Vintage that a first or second-turn Dread Returned Hypnotist is as good as Flame-Kin Zealot because if you can empty your opponent’s hand that early, you’ve essentially won anyway. There are times when Hypnotist is actually better because you can cast Dread Return, but will not have enough Zombie tokens to win immediately with FKZ. In most cases you will still be able to empty their hand with Hypnotists. I wanted to try this out in a tournament setting since my testing had shown this theory to be accurate more often than not. I wanted to optimize the odds of an early Hypnotist, so I ran two instead of the Witness. This was a metagame choice since I suspected a great deal of Blue and combo decks in Vestal. Hypnotist cripples both of these archetypes easily. In a more aggro-oriented environment, I would opt for a different choice because unless you can activate him by turn 2 (or three on the play), the aggro deck can get enough lands and spells into play to make a game of it even if you Mind Twist them.
Do you feel that this is the next major change for the deck, or was it a specific choice for that metagame?
I’m not yet sure. I seriously think that Zealot may be overkill. Ichorids, Zombie tokens, and Golgari Grave-Troll are often enough offense in most situations if you can empty your opponent’s hand. I’ll probably try a split of one Witness and one Hypnotist next to see if the flexibility helps against a broader spectrum of opponents.
Did you win or lose any specific games because you were playing Sadisitic Hypnotists instead of Flame-Kin Zealot/Eternal Witness?
I definitely did not lose any games due to the switch. I can’t guarantee that I won because of the switch, but there were definite games at the tournament that I brought back Hypnotist and emptied my opponent’s hand when I couldn’t have swung for the win. I have seen people Brainstorm into Crypt and Engineered Explosives in one turn to wreck me off a hand with one land in it. I think that Hypnotist over FKZ will turn out most relevant against decks that would win in that extra one-two turns they would have if they had a hand, like combo or control decks that have sweepers or board control cards such as Moat, Wrath, or Humility. The times that you can’t hit for 20+ damage in one swing comes up often enough overall for me to be confident in the change.
What about your decision to run Tireless Tribe in board? Where did you plan to bring it in and was it useful?
I usually run Greater Gargadon in the slot that most players run Pithing Needle against Tormod’s Crypt and Relic of Progenitus. Gargadon’s mainly there for control decks. Since this list was already maindecked to beat combo and control, I wanted a sideboard that better dealt with aggro. The two Tribes and two Ancient Grudge were used since Tribe is a great blocker, and gives you better control of dredging against Crypt/Relic. Then Grudge can force them to use it at a time when you can best take advantage of it. This works against control almost as well but isn’t as necessary. Since I take out LED in those match-ups, the additional discard outlet is also a need. Having an answer to troublesome artifacts in addition to Chain of Vapors is just a bonus.
Section V — Parting Thoughts
What is your assessment of Ichorid in the modern Legacy metagame? Is Ichorid one of the best decks in Legacy? Why or why not?
It’s one of the top three decks, along with CounterTop and Ritual Tendrils variants. Ichorid has a huge advantage over most Blue decks despite being behind against other combo decks. In most metagames there will almost always be more Blue decks than combo decks Ichorid will usually have an overall advantage. This might set up a Paper-Scissors-Rock situation in other formats, but Legacy has such a diverse selection of equally viable decks that you can never really discount any deck possibility.
Do you feel that Ichorid will substantially change in the future or will the changes be fairly minor? Do you have any advice for anyone trying to redesign Legacy Ichorid?
Anything is possible. Barring a drastic new card like Bridge from Below being printed, it’s going to be difficult to significantly alter the dynamic of Ichorid. There are so few feasible cards that can actually function within the limitations of such an odd deck that any card found to work would cause some drama. If you’ve found something that can mechanically work in Ichorid, you’re halfway there. You just need to then find if it’s better than current options and if so in what number. It gets kind of boring sometimes since there are so many cards that are absolute requirements in the deck and minor changes take a greater sample size to determine results. Just test the hell out of it and see what happens.
AnwarA101 on The Source and StarCityGames Forums
PS: I would like to thank Damon Whitby for taking the time to answer my questions.